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* Cordiant speaking to potential anchor investors -
executive
* Co-investments could take total past $700 million
* Asset manager hires former JPMorgan bankers Kippen, Shilo
By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Asset manager Cordiant Capital is
looking to raise around $350 million for a telecoms
infrastructure equity fund and has hired two veteran dealmakers
as it looks to benefit from strong growth in mobile data usage.
Canadian-based Cordiant is speaking to potential anchor
investors for the fund, Cordiant IX, co-Chief Executive Benn
Mikula told Reuters. He added that he expected some investors in
the fund to commit an additional $350 million, alongside the
fund but not in it, in the form of co-investments in the same
telecoms infrastructure.
The fund will aim to capitalise on the increasing global
need for new infrastructure as 5G technology prompts a worldwide
increase in mobile data consumption and telecoms operators seek
to share the cost.
"The carriers are finding that the cost of maintaining the
client relationship, spending on their core networks and the
client experience, whilst also investing in the plumbing and
infrastructure of their network is extraordinarily expensive,"
Mikula said.
The new technology typically required more towers to be
built to ensure wireless coverage, more fibre connections and
more data centres, with Europe lagging other regions in rolling
it out, added Steven Marshall, Cordiant's chairman of telecoms.
Among recent activity, Cellnex Telecom agreed to
buy Portuguese tower operator OMTEL, while Telecom Italia
and Vodafone are expected to kick off a sale
of a stake in their Italian towers business.
Cordiant's fund would be the sixth biggest of 11
telecoms-focused funds currently in the global market raising
money, data from industry tracker Preqin showed. The biggest is
Melody Communications Infrastructure Fund II, seeking $1.5
billion.
"Our pipeline is sufficiently robust that we could deploy
all of that capital out of the gate," Mikula said.
Cordiant was founded in Montreal in 1999 with backing from
the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and launched four funds
before being bought in 2015 by Mikula and partner Jean-Francois
Sauve.
Since then, it has launched several further funds focused on
infrastructure and other physical assets including Cordiant
VIII, which is still raising money to invest in Brazil's
agriculture industry.
Total capital deployed since the takeover is around $2.1
billion, most of which came from institutional investors such as
pension schemes and family wealth offices in Europe and the
United States.
Ahead of the launch of the telecoms fund, Mikula said the
firm had hired two new senior dealmakers, David Kippen and Hagai
Shilo, both of whom previously worked at JPMorgan, where Mikula
ran the European technology and telecoms team.
Kippen, who will divide his time between Montreal and
London, has completed more than 40 private equity and M&A deals
with a combined value of more than $30 billion.
(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Pravin Char)
